Free The Passionate Enemies by Jean Plaidy Page B

good to me.’
    â€˜I would we had been blessed with sons.’
    Matilda was silent thinking, you were over old for that. And if I had had sons I should never have been able to leave Germany. I should have been here all the days of my life when my heart is in England.
    â€˜Try to sleep,’ she said.
    â€˜It is not easy. I like not the darkness of the night. In the dark I see pictures of the past. It is only by daylight that they disappear.’
    â€˜Then I will leave the candle burning.’
    â€˜And talk to me, Matilda. While I talk to you I am better. You comfort me when you tell me that you have not been unhappy here.’
    She lay down watching the flickering shadows throw grotesque shadows on the walls. He talked a little and sheanswered drowsily. She was not sleepy but her thoughts were far from him.
    He cannot live much longer was the theme of these. Then I shall be free.
    Freedom! She had watched the birds wheeling in the sky; how effortlessly they flew. That was how she wished she could fly . . . back to England.
    â€˜Are you asleep, Matilda?’
    Oh, God, she thought, is he going to start again? Go to sleep, you senile old man. I have had enough of you.
    He sighed and was quiet. She lay still, thinking of home. What was happening there now? Adelicia was sleeping beside her husband – poor barren Adelicia. And Stephen was with his Matilda, or with some mistress more likely. She knew Stephen.
    She wondered whether he had forgotten her. If he had when she returned to England he would soon remember. But how could she return while she was tied to this old fool of an Emperor?
    Tonight though when he had stood shivering by the window and she had lighted the candle and looked into his yellow face she had thought she had seen death there.
    Soon, she prayed. Let me have my freedom. Let Adelicia remain barren. Let the King, my father, in his despair of ever having a son, remember that he has a strong and clever daughter.
    Let all these things come to pass. Let me go to England . . . and Stephen.

The Poet’s Eyes
    THE KING WAS growing melancholy again. Surely Adelicia would become pregnant soon? Why was it that in spite of his efforts she remained barren?
    He was growing more and more irascible. So much seemedto irritate him that all his servants were afraid to go near him. Adelicia was unhappy, wondering whether she was to blame because she could not give the King the son he so urgently needed. Each night the King came to her bed but he was beginning to show that his performance there was in the nature of a duty.
    He was finding fault with everyone and everything; and it was during one of his restless periods that he decided to send his daughter-in-law back to his father.
    He liked his son’s widow. She was a charming young girl. Another Matilda. There were too many Matildas: his dead wife; his spirited daughter; Stephen’s wife; and they reminded him of the past when he had a healthy son and had been content enough even though his wife seemed to have stopped childbearing at too early an age. And in particular did his daughter-in-law, her head downcast, her thoughts of her young lost husband making her melancholy, bring home to him his dilemma.
    He sent for Roger that he might talk to him of his desire to be rid of her.
    â€˜â€™Tis not that I do not like the girl, Roger. She is a fair and gentle creature; but to look at her is a constant reminder of William and how he met his death on the White Ship, and then I begin to think, Roger, that God has deserted me. He took my son and will not give me another.’
    â€˜You are impatient, my lord.’
    â€˜As I must needs be. Look at me. Do you not see an ageing man?’
    â€˜I see a man in the prime of his life, sir. The Queen longs too passionately for a child, it may be, for I have heard wise women say that often if the longing is too intense the seed will not take root.’
    â€˜It is no fault of mine, of that I’m